i6o The Natural History- 



natural history that not only baffles our searches, but 

 almost eludes our guesses ! 



These hinmdines never perch on trees or roofs, and so 

 never congregate with their congeners. They are fearless 

 while haunting their nesting places, and are not to be 

 scared with a gun ; and are often beaten down with poles 

 and cudgels as they stoop to go under the eaves. Swifts 

 are much infested with those pests to the genus called 

 hippoboscce hiriuidinis ; and often wriggle and scratch 

 themselves, in their flight, to get rid of that clinging 

 annoyance. 



Swifts are no songsters, and have only one harsh 

 screaming note ; yet there are ears to which it is not 

 displeasing, from an agreeable association of ideas, since 

 that note never occurs but in the most lovely summer 

 weather. 



They never settle on the ground but through accident ; 

 and when down can hardly rise, on account of the short- 

 ness of their legs and the length of their wings : neither 

 can they walk, but only crawl ; but they have a strong 

 grasp with their feet, by which they cling to walls. Their 

 bodies being flat they can enter a very narrow crevice ; 

 and where they cannot pass on their bellies they will turn 

 up edgewise. 



The particular formation of the foot discriminates the 

 swift from all British hirundmes ; and indeed from all 

 other known birds, the hirundo melba, or great white- 

 bellied swift of Gibraltar, excepted ; for it is so disposed 

 as to carry " omnes quatuor digitos anticos " all its four toes 

 forward ; besides the least toe, which should be the back- 

 toe, consists of one bone alone, and the other three only 

 of two apiece. A construction most rare and peculiar, 

 but nicely adapted to the purposes in which their feet are 

 employed. This, and some peculiarities attending the 

 nostrils and under mandible, have induced a discerning 

 naturalist^ to suppose that this species might constitute 

 a ge?ius per se. 



In London a party of swifts frequents the Tower, 

 playing and feeding over the river just below the bridge ; 

 ^ John Antony Scopoli, of Carniolu, M.D. 



